Textile treatment compositions suitable for providing fabric softening and static control benefits during laundering are well known in the art and have found widespread commercial application. Conventionally, rinse-added fabric softening compositions contain, as the active component, substantially water-insoluble cationic materials having two long alkyl chains. Typical of such materials are di-hardened tallow dimethylammonium chloride and imidazolinium compounds substituted with two tallow groups.
Recently, a new class of softening agents has been developed, which possess improved softening abilities. Such compounds, disclosed in EPA No. 0 199 383, are selected from di-higher alkyl cyclic amines, with the di-tallow imidazolines and ester derivatives thereof being preferred.
It has appeared however that stringent conditions need to be applied if one wants to obtain a stable, concentrated dispersion containing said cyclic-amine softening agents in the molten state; such conditions include high temperature, inert atmosphere, absence of moisture, and are therefore difficult and expensive to create, especially upon shipment of the concentrated dispersion.
These stability problems become even more acute when the said cyclic-amine softening agents are mixed with a quaternary softening agent before being dispersed in water to form the final composition.
It has now been found that by using certain novel imidazole compounds, aqueous dispersions can be formulated, which show a very good hydrolytical stability in all storage conditions.
It has further been found that such imidazole compounds are particularly suitable for pre-mixing with conventional quaternary ammonium compounds especially in terms of stability or prolonged storage.
In terms of performance, the textile treatment compositions containing said imidazole dispersions provide excellent softeness benefits to the treated fabrics.